I decided to make my own DIY Vanity. This thought was brought on by the fact that I have a very small bathroom that is always in use by my family. I looked online for one to buy but they were always quite big, again my home is very small and I need to make the most of the space that I have.

I needed the DIY vanity to be:

SmallCuteEasy to make
Have space for lots of makeup storage
Have good lighting
Have a large mirror

I needed some good ideas so I decided to get some inspiration from my favorite place on the web, Pinterest. There was so many different cute ideas and shapes of the DIY Vanities that I was a little overwhelmed so I decided to make a trip to the second hand thrift store to see what I could find.

Step 1: What to Use for the Main Piece in the Vanity?

After searching the second hand shop guess what I found that was PERFECT for my DIY Vanity? A desk! Yup, that’s right a desk you know the kind that is at school that you used as a kid and you could store your crayons and papers in there? This desk had an opening that would fit makeup storage just right. I now needed to figure out how the rest of my needs would fit into the equation.

Step 2: Cleaning the Desk

Getting a desk from the second hand store was cheap, only $15! I just needed to clean it up a bit, so I unscrewed it to make sure it got a real good scrubbing and got to it. I also needed to sand it down a bit around the edges because they were ruffed up from all the use over the years.

Cleaning the desk was a challenge because it was very dirty from all the years being used. I took the desk apart to reach areas all over it, especially inside the drawer area. I used cleaning wipes and some good old fashioned soup and water. After I got it clean it was time to decorate!

Step 3: Paint the Desk

Now I need to paint it. I decided to use spray paint because it was easy and metal friendly. Spray painting the desk only took about 1 hour. I used a reflective gold color on the top of it. It needed some more zing so I decided to do a stencil on top in a white color. You can find this stencil at Hobby Lobby. This was so easy to do and took very little time. Basically I took the stencil I just placed on top of the desk and spray painted white color on it and BAM! Beautiful design.

Step 4: Add the Essentials

Now to find a mirror for the DIY Vanity.

I needed a mirror for DIY Vanity. I thought about getting a large piece of wood and attach it to the back of the vanity, but that seemed like an awful lot of work so I grabbed my purse and headed to Ross Dress for Less. I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t that a clothing store?” Yeah, it sure is but they have a bunch of decor that is wicked cheap. I found the perfect mirror for less than $30. I call that a win for sure. I decided that the mirror can just rest on top of the vanity against the wall and that would be good enough. No sawing or installation needed. At my trip to Ross Dress for Less I went looking for something that would hold my makeup and fit into the desk while looking stylish at the same time. I found a simple square decorative box that was long enough and short enough to fit in the opening of the desk at Ross Dress for Less. It was even in the color I wanted to match the vanity, bright gold. How am I going to find light to add to the vanity?

Now I needed to find out how to add light to the vanity. So far I had a desk, makeup holder, and a mirror. I needed a light. I thought that I wanted a light around the mirror at first but I failed to find the right kind of light. I looked around at various places and nothing matched so I decided to use a lamp that could bend on the stem of it. Surprisingly it worked great for the job, it gave me plenty of light and didn’t take up too much room on top of the Vanity. And boom all done!